and so going into boston that day, we felt like we had a pretty darn good chance of winning. so, as you can imagine, it was a bit of a shock when we didn't win. >> reporter: you were the running mate. was that the campaign paul ryan would have run? >> oh, gosh. you know, i think -- when you join a ticket three months out, you join somebody's campaign. i was really impressed with the way mitt and ann brought us into the fold. so i was very encouraged by that. i really enjoyed it. and i wanted to run a big campaign on ideas. we did that. we ran on ideas. >> reporter: "saturday night live" poked fun at ryan, a native of jamesville, wisconsin, for failing to help romney win his home state. >> mother sent me to come get you, father. paul ryan is doing feets of strengths in the drawing room. >> hell, i'd like to see him carry wisconsin. >> reporter: so what happened in wisconsin? >> i think we got higher than that. a little bit. janesville has always voted democrat top of the ticket. wisconsin has always voted democrat top of the ticket so we knew it was an uphill battle but still